The present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus including a display portion for displaying an image and a touch panel portion, so as to perform image processing on a specified range, and to an image processing method. Further, the present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus including the image processing apparatus.
There are cases where an image forming apparatus such as a multifunctional peripheral, a copier, a printer, or a facsimile machine is equipped with a display portion with a touch panel for receiving user's operation and input. Further, the image forming apparatus may be capable of accepting inputs for specifying a desired range in image data and for instructing to edit or process of the image data in the specified range. In other words, there are cases where the image forming apparatus has functions of editing images and using the edited contents.
There is known the following image forming apparatus capable of specifying a range in image data and using the image data in the specified range. Specifically, there is known the image forming apparatus including an image display unit for displaying image data on an operation panel, a pressed position detection unit using a touch panel, a coordinate point display unit for displaying coordinate points of vertexes and arbitrary coordinate points on the operation panel so that the coordinate points of the image data displayed on the operation panel can be grasped, a coordinate input unit for receiving a coordinate input in a region in the image data, an image region specifying unit for specifying a region to be edited in the image data by the coordinate input unit, an image editing unit for editing the image in which the region is specified, a sheet size determining unit for determining a sheet size suitable for a size of image data edited after specifying the region, a sheet magnification specifying unit for specifying a magnification of the determined sheet size, an image printing unit for printing the edited image, and an image storing unit for storing images. With this structure, improvement of efficiency, accuracy, and operability when specifying a region is aimed.
There is a case where an image can be edited by the image forming apparatus. Further, when editing the image, the image indicating content of the image data to be edited may be displayed on the display portion. Further, the region to be edited in the displayed image may be specified by input using the touch panel. Because the region to be edited in the image data can be specified while viewing the image displayed on the display portion, the user can specify a desired region to be edited while viewing the region.
Conventionally, when specifying the region to be edited, software keys for specifying coordinate values of specific points in the range and a display box for the specified coordinate values are displayed on the display portion so that the region can be specified.
On the other hand, in order to improve visibility and understandability for users, it is preferred to display the image to be edited (image indicating the image data content) to be as large as possible on the display portion (display panel).
The display portion (display panel) disposed in the image forming apparatus becomes more expensive as being large. Therefore, every product cannot be equipped with a large screen display portion, and there is a limitation of the screen size of the display portion. Therefore, an operation of specifying the region to be edited may be accepted by using the touch panel. Thus, it is not necessary to display the software keys and the display box for specifying coordinates, and hence the image to be edited (image indicating the image data content) can be displayed in as large size as possible.
There are various methods of specifying the region to be edited by using the touch panel. For instance, it is possible to adopt a method of touching the touch panel portion a plurality of times so as to specify the region as a polygonal region having vertexes of the touched positions. In addition, it is possible to accept an operation of tracing touch positions so as to enclose the region to be edited as the operation for specifying the region.
However, when touching the touch panel with a finger to specify the region, because the finger contacts with the touch panel as a surface, a position recognized as the touched point may be deviated from the position desired by the user (intended position). In particular, it is difficult to specify a desired region by touching the touch panel with a finger for a male adult having thick fingers or a person who cannot touch accurately due to an injury or the like.
Therefore, conventionally, it is usually necessary when specifying the region by touching the touch panel by a finger to perform a fine adjustment of the specified region (range) by finely shifting the touched position or to redo the operation of specifying the region in order to specify the region desired by the user. Therefore, there is a problem that when specifying the region by using the touch panel, the operation of specifying the region in accordance with the desired range is difficult and requires time.
In the known technique described above, software keys for specifying the region may be displayed. Therefore, the image indicating the image data content may be displayed in a substantially reduced manner. Therefore, the target itself for specifying the region may be small, and hence it is difficult to specify the region in accordance with the desired range by touching the touch panel.